Posted
by
michael
on Wednesday October 31, 2001 @06:22PM
from the trick-or-treat dept.

It seemed like a shame to delete all the Hallowe'en submissions coming in today, so let's see if we can figure out something useful to do with them. Tonight is a full moon, which is a bad thing if you happen to be around animals. Several readers sent in Mac O' Lanterns of varioustypes. One soul sent in a Jack O' Linux. This guy carves big pumpkins (be sure to click the arrows to see the finished versions). And if all else fails, bring out the Gimp.

Is it me or is msn.com [msn.com] in the background on another computer in the Jack O Linux pictures(not the kde one, but look behind it to the right)... Maybe they should have chosen kernel.org [kernel.org] as a background picture instead.(Or any other linux related site)

Wouldn't all full moons on Halloween be Blue Moons? Since October is 31 days long, Halloween being the 31st, and there's a full moon every 28 days or so, wouldn't it make it impossible for it not to be a Blue Moon whenever there's a full moon this late in the month?

Appearantly [skypub.com] the "Blue Moon" = 2 full moons in a month only came about in the last 20 years.

According to them, it was originally defined as an extra moon within a season - since all 12 full moons within the year have a specific name relative to their season, this extra moon was the blue one.

So, (as has been pointed out) with our more recent definition, every Halloween full moon will be a blue moon, but with the old definition it would would be blue. (blue moons could only be in Feb/March, May/June, Aug/Sept or Nov/Dec - at the end of the season)

Now days we call the 2nd full moon in a calender month a blue moon. But that was not the original definition.

Usually a season has 3 full moons, the last one often being called the harvest moon. On occasion, a season has 4 full moons. The last moon in the season is still the harvest moon. The 3rd full moon in a season with 4 full moons is the Blue Moon.

Ugh...don't remind me of that. I saw that in High School with some friends. One of the guys had seen it already and told us we didn't really want to see what was about to happen and that we probably should shut our eyes. We, being the brave idiots that we were, decided to watch anyway. Boy was that dumb.

Kids would be friendly if maybe you were nice to them. And God knows they go through hell in elementary school, so heaven forbid they have one night to express their rage towards the institutional societies they're being assimilated into.

What are you talking about? It sounds like You are the one that makes it not fun. There's plenty of *adult* costume parties out there with seriously hot women all dressed up. Go find one of those, if you can't find one host one... and tell me where it's at!

This halloween will be very special, with the crisis we are living and some superstitious facts. CNN tells us: To make the superstitious even more jittery, a constellation associated with the some end-of-the-world beliefs will also be at the top of Wednesday night's sky.
Look a great article [cnn.com]about this at cnn.com .

Why's it in the funny section anyway? It's pretty pathetic and unimaginative, and far from funny. It's the same tired old commercialized crap every year. The corporations who so many people seem to want to *give* their money too even have Americans calling Halloween a holiday. In my book, a holiday involves time off work. Talk about being conned. Use some imagination and organize a fancy dress party around your own theme at some other point in the year instead of doing it when corpor^H^H^H^H^H^Hsociety tells you. Why do people need other people dressing up before they'll do it themselves? Pathetic! Now, if you want a good celebration that has some spirit, try the British Guy Fawkes night... you'll get to burn shit!

As I recall from a tour of The Tower, Guy Fawkes Night (a.k.a. Bonfire Night on 5th November) celebrates his rather gruesome execution. Yes, he was hung, drawn (dragged around the streets behind a horse and cart) and quartered (chopped up). And then, to make sure he was really dead, his remains were burnt in a bonfire. The idea of burning an effigy (sp?) of Guy Fawkes on a bonfire to celebrate defeating him and his gunpowder plot is actually quite sick!

Well, you see... The Catholics tend to celebrate his efforts while the Anglicans tend to celebrate his defeat. It was after all a rather Catholic plot to blow up the highly Anglican Paraliament. In case anyone is wondering the Gun Powder Plot was Guy Fawkes' plan (I think he was just the one who got caught actually) to blow up a session of Parliament in England along with members of the monarchy in attendance. It was at an event similar to the U.S.'s State of the Union address. He was caught with large quantities of explosives in the building shortly before it was to occur.

Alternately, the whole thing may have been a setup by the Queen's intelligence service. The way in which the "conspiracy" was discovered was a little fishy, Fawkes was tortured until he confessed, the other "conspirators" pleaded not guilty (not having had the uh, "benefit" of the same treatment), and the trial seems to have been a foregone conclusion.

From the article:what's so unusual about a blue moon on Halloween is that it last shone over California in 1944. And there won't be
another until the year 2020

And:The blue moon was originally defined by the Maine Farmer's Almanac in 1819 as an extra full moon within any season. Later, however, the respected publication Sky and Telescope altered the almanac's definition and since then it has come to mean the second full moon within a single month.

well, as long as we're being pedantic, it's not quite a Blue Moon everywhere tonight. A very good explanation is available. [obliquity.com] In the U.S., only points in Chicago (US Central TZ) or west have a blue moon tonight.

They've gotta keep them busy doing something. You can't make them stand in one spot and stare for more than a couple days at a time... Of course, I don't think I'd give them knives for carving. Maybe they should stand in one spot holding a pumpkin for a couple more days...

Here in Lawrenceville, NJ, in between Trenton (where anthrax was found in the post office) and Princeton (where anthrax was found in the post office) and Ewing (where anthrax was found in the post office) the number of small kids coming around is down significantly from recent years. My kids (a step up from the small variety) are going out right now. I say DON'T SURRENDER TO THE DAMN TERRORISTS.

Heh, for a second there, I thought you were about to say something about not surrendering to all the annoying little kids who will TP your house if you don't give them candy (and sometimes even if you do).;-)

Seriously, you're absolutely right. We've got to remember where the "terror" in "terrorism" comes from: their desire is not to devestate so much as to frighten and bewilder. The more we worry and bite our nails over this stuff, the more successful they will deem this to be.

10-31-2001 Duuude, me and my buds have a great idea -- we took our machine and put it in a pumpkin -- we call it "Jack-O-Linux" get it? Linus would be proud!

11-04-2001 JOL (Jack-O-Linux) has begun to smell. I'm beginning to regret not putting in a fan as playing Quake tends to heat it up quite a bit and makes the rotting stench almost unbearable... should've used a Crusoe.

11-06-2001 JOL caught on fire today. I think a piece of rotting pumpkin flesh fell onto the sound card and caused a spark... I'm not really sure though, as I'm afraid to look inside the pumpkin.

11-07-2001 Fabreeze doesn't work on pumkins

11-09-2001 The JOL exploded today as I was browsing slashdot. Apparently the Methane inside the pumkin built up to critical levels. Now my room smells like an odd mixture of farts, pumpkin pie, ozone, and death. Funny thing though -- JOL still boots.

11-10-2001 Drinking with my buds tonight we came up with a great idea: B-E-O-W-O-L-F..

From the animal bite paper:The effect of the phases of the moon on human nature and behaviour is well documented; some studies show positive aspects of the association and some show negative aspects. Crime, crisis incidence, human aggression, human births, and traffic accidents are all positively correlated with the phases of the moon.2-6 Some articles have suggested that the full moon has no influence on human insanity, alcohol intake, drug overdose, trauma, or the volume of patients in emergency departments.

Translation -- studies on the effect of the lunar cycle on various things turn up contradictory results.

Nonetheless, the study linked here looks pretty sound to me, with fairly objective data measurement and P less than 0.001. I'd be interested to see a better breakdown of the animals involved but this sample seems to be so heavily weighted to dog bites that it probably doesn't matter.

Of course, the sort of people who style themselves "skeptics" confidently assert [cincinnatiskeptics.org] that the lunar cycle has no effect on anything. Those guys always rub me the wrong way, anyway, but if you're going to be a superior, sneering prick about other people's ideas, you should at least make sure that your "debunking" is accurate.

It's like how in college, your professors tell you that much of what you learned in high school is false. And then you discover that just about everything you were taught in college ws wrong.

I seems to me that most of the reviews of the literature on lunar effects turn up biases in most of the studies that show the effects.

If you take your data from the wrong couple of years and you find if your full moons occur disproportionaltely on weekends, is it that surprising that there are more hospital visits? Drunks and partiers are always doing wierd stuff on weekends. Since there are only a dozen or so full moons in a year, it is hard to get sufficient data to even out statistical effects such as this.

Cecil Adams has a couple articles on some of these things such as
crazies and full moons [slashdot.org] and for a discussion of
blue moons [straightdope.com].
Anyway, the study sighted took place over two years, which is about 24 months. No mention was made about the effect of day of the week which is probably only the first effect to control for. Do people go out hunting more often when the moon is full due to the better lighting? Are more people outside at night on those dates? Are people more likely to go to the hospital on these dates for some reason even if the biting rate doesn't change on these dates?

The fact that the author makes statemets like "Human behaviour is altered during the full moon period" after saying that the studies are contradictory and then goes on to say that their study adds "Animals have an increased propensity to bite humans during the full moon periods" (at best they have shown that more people come to the hospital with animal bites in these periods). These types of conclusions do not fill me with confidence in any of the other work.

As a Darwinist, I can easily see how a full moon has affected animals behavior. Throughout our evolution, animals have found that full moons afford more light for hunting. As this would roughly extend hunting season from around 12 hours to around 24, I could easily see why both predators and prey would want to get excited.

Perhaps another study should be done which compares the amount of moonlight penetrating the atmosphere, and the incidents of animal excitedness. Just an idea, but perhaps you'll find that you get more bites when it's a clear sky out, and they can see the full moon.

I was just too stoked to see this. Those wacky kids over at sCary's [shacknews.com] carved pumpkins [shacknews.com] the other night. The best, hands down, is the middle one here [shacknews.com]. I dont ever think I've ever seen a Thundercats logo in a pumpkin. Even better: shugaMom [shacknews.com] was the one who carved [shacknews.com] it.

To make the superstitious even more jittery, a constellation associated with the some end-of-the-world beliefs will also be at the top of Wednesday night's sky.

The Seven Sisters constellation, which looks like a small cluster of grapes, has long been a signal for the time of year to honor the dead - such as All Saints Day, Nov. 1.

According to myth, the Seven Sisters constellation is at its highest point in the sky during a great calamity, possibly the biblical flood or the sinking of Atlantis. The Aztecs and Mayans believed it would be overhead at midnight on the night the world comes to an end, Horkheimer said.

The Seven Sisters and the full moon will both be directly overhead at midnight, he said.

When I went out of my building at work, I saw a black cat. Of course I went up to it and started to pet it. When my wife arrived in the car to pick me up, I went to grab it. You see, there are some sickos in this country (and not just this country) that will see a black cat on hallowe'en and kill it or perform other forms of torture.

One hour later, we got it into the car. Now we're setting up a living space for it for the night. We've named it "Ween".

Although my post-work Halloween sucked ass (something about putting a nail through your foot 24hrs before Halloween makes going dancing, walking, or anything a bit difficult) my time at work was fun. I put on an old bright orange jumpsuit I had custom made, on the front left above the pocket it had my name written out in block letters, and on the back "CYOTE FLATS FEDERAL PRISON."

I decided to test my luck and go to the DMV after work, no problems. Passed over a dozen police, no problems. Went into a gas station, no problems. Pump gas, no problems. Sit outside at a park bench and smoke a cigarette while looking at the moon, get interrogated, hand cuffed, and thrown in the back of a cop car while he runs my ID. Hows that for ironic?

I'll have to put on my leg shackles, hand cuffs, and go rolling around in the dirt before I go out next year.

Back when I was a consultant-for-hire, I worked service contracts for about a couple dozen different companies in Oregon City, Oregon. It's one of the oldest cities in Oregon, and one of the poorest, which meant crawling around attics, pulling cable, and doing other miscellaneous grunt work (SGI support:) in some VERY old buildings.

Well, we had one particularly nasty company under contract in one of the older buildings("The Historic Myers Building", used to be a hospital), built in the 1890s. Plaster walls (that are a BITCH to cut through), pneumatic mail tubes, etc.

This customer was a structural engineering house, and had folks working in there at all hours of the day and night. As such, we tended to get calls in the wee hours of the morning. It was okay.. I was typically up pretty early in the morning myself. I grumbled about it to my boss, but didn't care much..

..Until one night in 1994 that SCARED THE HELL out of me.

I got a support call at about 3 in the morning from one of the engineers. They were having network trouble, and none of their machines were actually on the network and functional. So I hopped in the car and drove down to take a look..

We had just recently upgraded their network from crappy 10Base2 to super-cool 10BaseT in a pretty big contract for us at the time, and which involved wiring the whole building, using the pneumatic tube system as wiring tunnels, and using the diverter room as a wiring closet.

So after talking with the engineer who placed the call, and seeing that his office switch didn't even have network link, I headed to the diverter room, a dank, poorly lit little room in the basement.

It was pretty obvious just from the smell that something was wrong in there. STRONG ozone odor. Crap. There had been a fiasco only a couple of months previous where something similar had happened because of condensation on the network cables dripping into the network ports. We'd rearranged the wires a bit to make that less likely, but I'd figured that's what had happened again. So I unplugged the (dead) equipment, took note of the model numbers, and turned around to head home, where I'd order new ones in the morning.

Well, as I turned around to leave, I saw (and this is where it gets freaky, kids), this guy standing a few feet from the door, facing the wall.

Not PARTICULARLY scary, but a little unsettling. So I laugh nervously, and ask the guy if I can help him. He jumped at the sound of my voice and slowly turned around. There was something seriously messed up about this guy. His eyes were a jet black (like, no whites), and his skin was seriously mottled, like he had bad acne scars or something. He tilted his head slightly to the side and, well, I can only describe it as UNHINGED his jaw, and made this horrible, TERRIBLE scratchy gurgling hissing sound. Shit.

Now it's 4 in the morning, I'm heavily sleep deprived, in an enclosed space, and someone I don't recognize is acting strange in ways I didn't think were humanly possible is standing VERY near to the door.

So I basically freaked out. I bolted through the doorway and at the stairs. As I rounded the first corner, I saw him chasing after me, his jacket spread out from the wind in a truely frightening pose, all the while making that horrible hissing/gurgling sound. When I reached the stairs, I was running so fast I missed the first step and hit my shin pretty badly on the next one. He was a lot closer than I thought because that's all the delay it took for him to grab hold of my leg.

I screamed and kicked and tried to pull myself away from him but he had a FIRM grip on my leg. He pulled me by the leg back down the stairs, and pulled my by the leg towards the diverter room. Just like I'm pulling your leg now.

Our Pilgrim forefathers well knew of Halloween's occultic roots. In fact they banned celebrating Halloween in America. Halloween was not celebrated in this country until 1845. At that time multiplied thousands of Irish emigrants flooded into New York because of the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-46. They brought with them the old Druid holiday of Halloween. Gradually celebrating this day spread throughout the rest of the country.

Now, to understand Halloween better we must go even further back. I found that the original celebration was not called by its present name, Halloween. But, it began long before Christ among the ancient Celtic peoples (Britons, Gauls, Scots, Irish). They observed the end of summer with sacrifices to SAMAN (Shamhain). He was "the lord of death and evil spirits". This marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year.

A Note About Saman

Depending on your source material, the Druid lord of death and evil spirits was called Saman, Samana, Shamhain or Samhain. His "holiday" was called "The Vigil Of Saman" or Samhain (pronounced so-wein). You probably have seen a modern day version of SAMAN without even knowing it. This pagan god was shown as a ghostly, skeleton holding a sickle in his hand. He later came to be known as THE GRIM REAPER.

More About the History of Samhain (Halloween)

Ralph Linton in his book Halloween Through the Centuries, says "The American celebration (of Halloween) rests upon Scottish and Irish folk customs which can be traced in a direct line from pre-Christian times. The earliest celebrations were held by the DRUIDS in honor of Shamhain, lord of death, whose festival fell on November 1st."

Searching other sources, I have this information to add: The Celts considered November 1st as being the day of death because the leaves were falling, it was getting darker sooner and temperatures were dropping. They believed Muck Olla, their sun god, was loosing strength because Samhain, lord of death, was overpowering him. Further, they believed that on October 31st Samhain assembled the spirits of all who had died during the previous year. They had been confined to inhabit animals' bodies for the past year as punishment for their evil deeds. On the eve of the feast of Samhain, October 31st, they were allowed to return to their former homes to visit the living. Supposedly to protect these people, Druid priests led the people in diabolical worship ceremonies in which horses, cats, black sheep, oxen, human beings and other offerings were rounded up, stuffed into wicker cages and burned to death. This was done to appease Samhain and keep the spirits from harming them.

The Druids

Who were the DRUIDS? They were occult practitioners, witches of sorts. In the century preceding the birth of Christ, Caesar conquered the Britains and he records very carefully the account of the DRUID PRIESTS (early witches)..."All Gallic nations are much given to superstition...they either offer up men as victims to the gods, or make a vow to sacrifice themselves. The ministers in these offerings are the Druids, and they hold that the wrath of the immortal gods can only be appeased, and man's life redeemed, by offering up human sacrifice, and it is a part of their national institutions to hold fixed solemnities (Ceremonies) for this purpose."

I looked deeper to see if I could find the dates of these "fixed solemnities." In the series edited by Richard Cavendish called, Man, Myth and Magic it says, in volume 6, page 720, "...the pagan Celts in Northern Europe held two great fire festivals each year -- Beltane on the eve of 1 May and Samhain on the eve of 1 November -- to mark the beginning of summer and winter." I also came across an article written by Robert Graves in the Daily Telegraph Magazine, May 21, 1965. Graves said the fixed worship days are the "cross- quarterly days-Candlemas (February 2nd), May Eve (April 30th), Lammas (August 1st) and Halloween (October 31st).

When they got together on these pagan worship days they would meet in a grove of trees (preferably oak trees) or in a Druidic stone circle, the most famous surviving circle being located in Stonehenge, England. It is evident that human sacrifice was common at this ancient Druid Sacrificial Circle because within three miles of this sight there are over 350 funeral mounds that contain the remnants of countless human sacrifices.

Holiday researcher George Douglas adds some interesting information when he says "Many of Halloween's customs are derived from the ancient Baal Festivals. Other customs originate from the taking of omens from the struggles of victims in the fires of druidic sacrifices." (From: The American Book of Days, by George William Douglas revised by Helen Douglas Compton).

Alexander Hislop in his book, The Two Babylons, says, "The god whom the Druids worshipped was Baal, as the blazing Baal-fires show --- We know that they offered human sacrifices to their bloody gods. We have evidence that they made `their children pass through the fire to Molech', and that makes it highly probable that they also offered them in sacrifice; for, from Jeremiah 32:35, compared with Jeremiah 19:5, we find that these two things were parts of one and the same system." Further, it is to be noted that the "priests of Nimrod or Baal were necessarily required to eat of the human sacrifices; and thus it has come to pass that `Cahna-Bal', (Cahna is the emphatic form of Cahn which means `a priest') meaning the priest of Baal, is the established word in our tongue for a devourer of human flesh." (from The Two Babylons, Hislop. See page 232).

Though the name of their gods were changed Hislop believes that the Druids practices were rooted in Baal worship, which is condemned in the Bible.

There Are Still Druids Today

According to Robert Graves, there are still Druid practitioners around today. In fact, members of one surviving coven in Somersetshire, England still carry small blue tattoos pricked below a particular finger joint made from woad (an Old World plant with leaves that yield a blue dye) as did ancient Druids. You will still find Druids meeting at Stonehenge this Halloween symbolically carrying out their grotesque sacrifices. Although they claim no longer to practice human sacrifices they are one group responsible for keeping the occultic celebration of Halloween before the media. The followers of the Druids pagan religion are common in the USA too. A woman called me and told me a group going around to Milwaukee, Wisconsin area libraries presenting a program to children which dealt with their heritage. She engaged one in a conversation afterwards and found that he claimed to be a druid priest who practiced the "old religion."

The Pathetic Paradox of Christians Celebrating Halloween

It's no wonder that a onetime witch of our day, Tom Sanguinet, former high priest in the Celtic tradition of Wicca (witchcraft) said, "Halloween is purely and absolutely evil, and there is nothing we ever have or will do that would make it acceptable to the Lord Jesus."

Owen Rachleff amplifies this when he wrote, "Halloween can be, and to many is, a deadly serious affair. [It] originated with pre-Christian Druids or Celts in Northern Europe, who marked the year by four seasonal festivals. The autumn feast took place on November 1st. Early Christians, desiring a part in the traditional festivities, created All Saints' Day to coincide with the pagan rites. Satanists--acting true to form--reversed the Christian procedure. Because November 1st was All Saints' Day (All Souls' Day, November 2nd, memorializes the dead), Satanists established October 31st as and "All Demon's Night." As surely as the Christian martyrs and saints dominated their own holiday, so did the demons permeate the preceding evening. All Hallows' Eve predictably became a time of spells, curses, and horrors for those who did not believe, but for the Satanists, particularly the witches, it was a joyous festival and major sabbat. So it remains in a diluted form, ironically celebrated by Christian society far more vigorously than All Saints' Day." (Quoted from The Occult Conceit - A New Look at Astrology, Witchcraft and Sorcery, by Owen S. Rachleff, from page 189-190.)

Historically, Halloween is obviously and totally a pagan, occultic worship day. There is NOTHING Christian about the day. Pause for a moment. Dig beneath the candy. What is the primary focus of Halloween, even in our day? I see a three fold focus... 1) DEATH 2) FEAR & HORROR 3) EVIL, THE DEVIL & THE OCCULT. There is absolutely NO Christian significance to be found in Halloween.

Modern Day Occult, Witchcraft and Satanism Celebrate Halloween

You need to understand that even today Halloween is STILL an occult worship day. Phil Phillips says in his book, Halloween and Satanism, "...Halloween is a day witches celebrate above all other days."

Is there any support for Phil's statement? Yes! "The Maine State Prison allowed members of a witch coven (the Coven of Dawn) to hold a two-hour service on the feast day they call Samhain [Halloween], after the Druidic festival of year's end. `This is our time to give praise to our lord and lady for the bountiful harvest,' said the founder of the `goddess- oriented' coven. He said that 75 inmates have been initiated into the religion since its start in 1981." (This report is from Observations, 11/87 by way of the "What In The World!" information sheet.

Turn your attention to the October 1989 issue of the Baptist Bulletin magazine. It reported, in the "NEWS" section, "A U.S. Air Force physical therapist who says she has been a practicing witch for four years won permission to take Halloween and seven other days off as `religious holidays.' A spokesman at Lackland Airforce base in San Antonio said regulations require that Patricia Hutchins...be accorded the same freedom to express her religious beliefs as any other religious believer."

Probably the best documentation as to whether modern day witches actually celebrate Halloween comes from their own testimony. When asked "Does anyone today celebrate Samhain (Halloween) as a religious Holiday?" a major witches' organization responded, "Yes, many followers of various pagan religions, such as Druids and Wiccans (witches), observe this day as a religious festival. They view it as a memorial day for their dead friends similar to the national holiday of Memorial Day in May. It is still a night to practice various forms of divination concerning future events. Also, it is a time to...initiate new projects." (from Cult Watch Response, October 1988, Vol. 1, No. 1).

Witches and Satanists love Halloween. They get a lot of media coverage around that time of year. It's good P.R. (public relations) for them. That coverage usually portrays them in a favorable light. In addition, it generates interest in "the craft" and is good for recruitment purposes. As Craig Hawkins put it, "...with increasing vigor, witchcraft is coming `out of the broom closet.' Many witches are actively seeking public understanding and acceptance." (quote from an article in Christian Research Journal; Winter/Spring 90 entitled "The Modern World of Witchcraft" by Craig S. Hawkins.)

Despite the public relations campaign to "sell" the public on the "virtues" of witchcraft, modern day witches and Satanists still worship demon gods & goddesses, practice bizarre & immoral sexual rituals, and certain groups offer animal and human sacrifices.

Noted New Age Researcher Texe Marrs said this about the activities of witches on Halloween. "...our own research confirms that on this unholy night [Halloween], witches' covens meet, drink, dance, spit out curses and spells, conjure up spirits, engage in sexual orgies, induct new members, and offer up animal and human sacrifices. (Witches have become expert at covering up these sacrifices by use of cremation ovens and the use of privately owned land preserves for disposal of bodies in deeply dug graves.)" He goes on to say, "Somewhere in America in the week prior to this coming Halloween, children will be kidnapped by witches and become statistics as `missing children.'...While chances of your children being snatched may be remote, never the less we believe caution and good judgment is in order."

Jack Roper, occult researcher with C.A.R.I.S. (Christian Apologetics: Research & Information Service) says "...the time of the year where you have the highest rate of Satanic ritual crimes is Halloween."

Jack also said, "Around Halloween, one of the things you see are graveyard desecrations." Self-styled Satanists use human bones in their rituals. Graveyard vandalism is a common Halloween occurrence.

At this point, I want to share with you some more "Halloween crimes" I am acquainted with.

A Milwaukee county park worker contacted me in 1989. He told me of finding numerous remains of small animals that had been sacrificed in area parks around Halloween. It was clear that these sacrifices were occult related because the remains were associated with either an altar, inside a circle, triangle or pyramid structure. That's not all.

While deer hunting in Marinette County, Wisconsin, I came across the remains of a bull that had been sacrificed within a stone circle. It is almost certain that this was part of a Halloween ritual sacrifice performed by a Satanic group.

Dave Benoit tells of a mother finding a strange diary, called "The Book Of Shadows" in her son's room. She with fear and trembling leafed through pages filled with Satanic drawings. Then her eyes fell on these horrifying words, "Last year I stole a car at Halloween and ran over a kid and killed him. This year, at Halloween, I plan to do the same thing!" The words in his satanic diary proved to be true. The teenager is now incarcerated. He murdered a kid as a sacrifice to Satan.

Halloween is an evil day. Halloween honors Satan, idol worship, immorality, demonic rituals and human sacrifice. Halloween is not a day I want to celebrate because of what it has stood for and what it stands for today. Jack Roper put it simply enough, "You would never see Jesus at a Halloween party. Halloween parties in churches are an abomination [to the Lord]."

I no longer promote or participate in Halloween activities because of its association with idolatry, immorality, bizarre rituals and human sacrifice. The Bible warns us, "...the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils." (I Corinthians 10:20). That is why I am exposing the day for what it really is, SATAN'S DAY!

Nice fundermentalist rant, no really at least you actually went to the trouble of quoting sources
(biased sources but what the hell).
However a few key points you left out
1.
Samhain is decended from celtic practices which occured a very very long time ago (~ 4BC and
earlier). While this may not sound that bad bear in mind the celts had a extensive oral
history and did not leave written records so anything we know about them ammounts pretty much to
hearsay, rumor and propoganda.
2.
Sacrafice (Human and otherwise)
While i admit this probably did occur (the romans at least generally disapproved of human
sacrafice in religious rituals) the context is important. Most early cultures lacked a seperation
between church and state so sacrafices where often a type of criminal punishment. Likewise
volantory sacrafice can be veiwed in a similar vein to martyrdom and other such religius
practices. As for animal sacrafice theres little differance between sacraficing it to a god or
sacraficing it to your stomach.
3. Modern Vs Ancient Religion.
Religions change constantly bits fall in and out of style, things get made up. Most modern pagan
celtic movements have as little similarity with their origins as modern protestantism, evangelism
or catholisim has with early christianity.
(before responding to this do a quick search on Gnostics, the Nicine Creed (possible sp),or the
Apocrypha. There interesting isn't it)
Hope this wan't to much flamebait but I felt htis needed a decent response.

It's completely unrelated to geeks, but I think/.r's are going to want to hear about it.

My wife works as a webmaster for a local VA (veterans affairs) hospital. Today she was tasked to make a video on radiation poisining so the doctors can train. Apparantly the head VA hospital heard that the taliban has 5 suitcase sized nuclear bombs in the USA. I'm not sure where they heard that from, but VA is a ol boys club, i'm sure their source was reliable.

My family was late with halloween this year. We didn't get our pumpkins until like 1700 (5 PM) on Halloween. The only reason I asked my parents to take me to the store to get a pumpkin is so I could build the mac-o-lattern. We have had just a few trick-or-treaters (like 15 groups), but one of the Moms said that my Mac-O-Latterns was one of the best pumpkins she had seen tonight. I don't think she knew that it was the mac symbol. I should have told her that, anything to bring the common folk away from Windoze.

This [jennyboyle.net] is the costume that my wife made for my daughter, who's seven months old. Hopefully she'll be learning more about operating systems than your average CS grad student these days....:-) (If that link doesn't work, try this one [209.249.172.3] instead.)

I told my wife she should be prepared to create a Tux-Costume-HOWTO depending on demand.

Yeah yeah,I know #3 is missing, but it's a bad picture. also only 4 people out of 750 got the jokes on my street, but there is hope for the future, my 4-year old and all her friends loved the 1st one most of all:)